The proposal to continue the freehold basis of suffrage was defeated by a vote of 37 to 51, Monroe voting yea and Madison and Marshall voting nay, and by a similar vote the right of suffrage was extended to housekeepers, being heads of families and paying any tax whatever. The reader may be curious to know how the people of Virginia themselves stood on the question, but it is impossible to say. The vote on the adoption of the constitution was 26,055 in favor, to 15,563 opposed; but this vote was not a measure of Virginia popular opinion in regard to a property qualification. The election went off on a different question and curiously enough, the new constitution which extended the suffrage was adopted by the votes of those opposed to the extension. The western counties though favoring, were disappointed because they were not given the legislative representation they claimed; in that respect the new constitution was considered favorable to the east, which though opposed to suffrage extension, voted for ratification, while West Virginia voted to defeat it. Of the total vote in opposition, 13,337, or over five-sixths, came from the region west of the Blue Ridge. Thus the Virginia discussion of the suffrage question, which engaged the ablest public men of the state for a generation and which ought to have produced a valuable result, came after all to nothing but compromise forced by clamor. Though property qualifications were reduced by the convention, the true principle involved was not presented or passed upon. The champions of good government unfortunately took their stand, not on the broad ground of property rights and political efficiency, but on the narrow claim of landholders and slave owners to control the legislature of the state; they permitted themselves to be placed in the false position of attempting to deny to the most enterprising and successful business man the vote which they offered to the shiftless proprietor of a log cabin in the backwoods. They stood on no sound principle and they were defeated.